Cambodia's former king Norodom Sihanouk, once an absolute ruler who
freed Cambodia from colonialism before becoming a tragic pawn through
decades of turmoil, died on Monday in a Beijing hospital. He was 89.
A pre-eminent figure in Cambodia's history for seven decades,
Sihanouk however will also be remembered as a puppet kept by the Khmer
Rouge during their 1970s reign of terror that killed almost a quarter of
the Cambodian population.
The quixotic ruler held considerable
power in the 1950s and 1960s when the young, flamboyant leader came to
symbolise Cambodia's liberation from French rule in what is now seen as a
golden age for an impoverished country long scarred by war. His close
aide, Prince Sisowath Thomico, Sihanouk had died of heart failure.
"This is not just mourning by the royal family but for all Cambodians. He is the father of the nation.
Flags
were lowered across Cambodia and the capital, Phnom Penh, was quiet on
Monday, the second day of the three-day Pchum Ben Festival, a national
holiday. His son, King Norodom Sihamoni was seen tearfully embracing
Prime Minister Hun Sen before both left for Beijing on a flight that
included Buddhist monks.
They will collect Sihanouk's body in
preparation for a state funeral in Phnom Penh.
Despite his self-exile in
China, declining health and diminished influence in later years,
Sihanouk still looms large over Cambodia, his portrait commonplace in
homes and buildings across the Southeast Asian nation of 14 million
people.
But as much as he will be remembered as the firm hand
that held the young and newly independent Cambodia together in the 1950s
and 1960s, memories are unlikely to fade of a man whose ill-fated
forays into politics contributed to three decades of war that turned his
country into a failed state.
"There can be no doubt that
Sihanouk's actions and his decisions contributed to the political
malaise that finally tore Cambodia apart," historian Milton Osborne
wrote in his 1994 biography.
His rise came after he was chosen by
France to be a puppet king to succeed his uncle, Sisowath Monivong, in
1941. He soon pushed for independence from Paris, which he achieved in
1953. An unashamed ladies' man, amateur film director and charismatic
orator adept in his native Khmer, French and English, Sihanouk endeared
himself to the public.
Palace prisoner In
the late 1960s, long after he had abdicated to strengthen his own
political clout, Sihanouk was powerless to stop his country's slide into
the Vietnam War and the 1970s Khmer Rouge "killing fields", under which
at least 1.8 million people died during Pol Pot's ultra-Maoist
revolution.
The Khmer Rouge kept Sihanouk as a figurehead and a
prisoner in his own palace after their 1975 victory, which ushered in
four years of brutality under which almost a quarter of the population
died of starvation, disease, execution or torture.
Like most
families in Cambodia, Sihanouk did not escape the tragedy of Pol Pot's
reign of terror, losing five children and 14 grandchildren.
Just
two years before the black-clad Khmer Rogue took power, he had posed for
photos with the guerrillas who would later seek to turn Cambodia into a
blood-stained peasant utopia.
At his political prime, he dealt
harshly with opponents and leftists and walked a tightrope between East
and West, alternately courting Washington and Moscow during the Cold
War. He upset conservatives by breaking off aid relations with the
United States in 1963 and helped China ship weapons to the Vietnamese
communists fighting Americans.
But Sihanouk paid the price and
was toppled from power while on a visit to Moscow by Lon Nol, the
US-backed general who moved to thwart Vietnamese and Cambodian
communists.
In 1973, Sihanouk made his biggest mistake in linking
up with his former opponents in the Khmer Rouge, a pact with the devil
for which he would pay dearly.
Even after the fall of the Khmer
Rouge in 1979, he supported royalists in their jungle battles against
the Hanoi-backed government of Hun Sen, whose seemingly unassailable
grip on Cambodian politics has never waned.
After a UN-brokered
peace treaty that led to a shaky transition to democracy in the early
1990s, Sihanouk became a figurehead king with limited power.
The
fate of the monarchy, and the country, then rested with Hun Sen. He
abdicated again in 2004 and went to live in Beijing, where he received
medical treatment for cancer and diabetes, among other ailments.
Prince Sisowath said the motivation for his abdication had been to preserve the monarchy and build a stable Cambodia.
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